EXPERTS DISAGREE AS TO CAUSE OF TITANIC SINKING

This story as it originally appeared in The Denver Post, April 16, 1912.

Washington, April 16.–The chaplains of both houses of congress mentioned the Titanic disaster in their invocations today. Chaplain Peirce in the senate referred to the “sore distress of our people and the sad fate that has overtaken our brethren on the great deep.” and asked Divine comfort. Chaplain Couden in the house prayed for more stringent laws for the protection of travelers by land of sea, as well as for those exposed to fire and flood.

Captain Charles A. McAllister expressed the belief that the mass which sent the Titanic to the bottom of the ocean was a salt water iceberg and not a plan berg of glacial formation. He pointed out that the ratio of ice above water in such an iceberg was only one-ninth of its bulk.

George Uhler, inspector general of the federal steamboat inspection service, said he believed the Titanic plunged into the iceberg with such momentum that the impact buckled her to pieces. The vessel in all probability, he added, ran over a submerged end of the berg, which ripped open her bottom; that her safety compartments thus quickly filled and the vessel became a helpless mass of twisted steel wedged in a mountain of ice.

one of the engineer officers declared the weak point in the ship’s design was a long central passageway running from the fire rooms forward to the collision bulkhead. At the fore end of this was a ladder whereby the firemen ascended from the fire rooms to their quarters on an upper deck.

It was his theory that the force of the collision started the plates at the end of this passage and that the great rush of water prevented the closing of the door in the bulkhead leading into the fire rooms. With the fire rooms filled, in addition to the bow compartments smashed by the blow against the ice, the ship would not have retained sufficient floative power to insure safety.

Kristen Iversen is the author of Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth, winner of the Colorado Book Award for Biography and the Barbara Sudler Award for Nonfiction. Her forthcoming book, Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, will be published in June.

Daniel Allen Butler is the author of nine books and a maritime and military historian. Among his books are "Unsinkable" -- the Full Story of RMS Titanic" and "The Other Side of the Night -- the Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost."

Janet Kalstrom became a docent at the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver after a 37-year banking career. As part of her work as a docent, she dresses in period costume to play Margaret "Molly" Brown at the museum.

As part of the Denver Post's commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, we've invited five experts in some aspect of the tragedy to blog for our website. Their fascination with the topic, in many ways, mirrors the enduring fascination of us all with the story of the giant oceanliner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Over the next month, our bloggers will provide us insights into the ship's history, the cultural context of the times and the passengers, including the indomitable Margaret "Molly" Brown of Denver who was aboard the vessel when it went down. One of our writers will even share her experience of participating in the Titanic Memorial Cruise, which sails in April from Southampton and retraces the route of the Titanic on its fateful voyage.